Worst movies of 2012

By Mick LaSalle

Updated 9:03 pm, Tuesday, December 25, 2012

“Anna Karenina” suffered from distancing devices that would have made it impossible to care about Anna, even if she were played by someone other than Keira Knightley.

Photo: Laurie Sparham

“Anna Karenina” suffered from distancing devices that would...

Ian McKellen reprises his "Lord of the Rings" role as Gandalf in "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey."

Photo: Warner Bros.

Ian McKellen reprises his "Lord of the Rings" role as Gandalf in...

This death rattle of the Bourne series, "The Bourne Legacy," starred Jeremy Renner, in a thoroughly opaque thriller that assumed audiences had just seen all three Bourne movies the night before and had committed every detail to memory. Therefore everyone was supposed to know what Blackbriar and Alcom referred to and why this was a direct threat to national security. This was never really explained, and even Rachel Weisz, as a scientist everyone wants to kill (for some reason or other), couldn't lift the proceedings.

Photo: Universal Pictures

This death rattle of the Bourne series, "The Bourne Legacy,"...

There are two kinds of Adam Sandler movies, and "That's My Boy" was the worst kind, the kind in which he plays a comic character, not a version of himself. Playing the dissolute slob father of a young man who is about to be married, Sandler tried to do a comic character while all the time commenting on the character he was creating, as if unwilling to commit to it. He was terrible. And the movie was nonstop vulgar, coarse and witless.

Photo: Tracy Bennett, Associated Press

There are two kinds of Adam Sandler movies, and "That's My Boy" was...

"For Greater Glory," a history of the Cristero War in Mexico, was so ineptly made that even the opening scroll was confusing. The movie started off as the story of a successful struggle, then shifted to a tale of moral victory in the face of defeat. And an insistent soundtrack telegraphed every emotion throughout.

Photo: Courtesy

"For Greater Glory," a history of the Cristero War in Mexico, was...

An agony of bad plotting and whimsical, lifeless scenes, Marjane Satrapi's first live-action film, "Chicken with Plums," told the story of a forlorn, chain-smoking violinist who, in the movie's first 10 minutes, decides to die. He gets into bed and doesn't die until the end of the movie. By then, half the audience is dead.

Photo: Patricia Khan, Sony Pictures Classics

An agony of bad plotting and whimsical, lifeless scenes, Marjane...

Morgan Spurlock cannot afford another lazy, self-loving, celebrity-coddling documentary like "Mansome." He takes a topic of genuine sociological interest — male grooming over the years — but doesn't really explore it. The first quarter of the movie is a meditation on whether he should shave his mustache. (Who does he think he is, David Axelrod?) The rest is a series of empty-headed interviews with various celebrities who even know less about what they're talking about than does Spurlock. Looking at a blank screen for 82 minutes would be a less empty experience.

Photo: Paladin Films

Morgan Spurlock cannot afford another lazy, self-loving,...

“A Little Bit of Heaven” might be the worst movie about a serious illness ever made, with Kate Hudson as an imbecile who finds herself with every dire symptom of colon cancer and keeps cracking jokes, even up to the colonoscopy, and when the doctor says he's going to have to do biopsies, she goes off on her merry way, unconcerned. If you're going to do a movie about a terrible illness that kills thousands every year, have respect for the actual experience of those people and their physical and emotional suffering. This movie was a joke.

“A Little Bit of Heaven” might be the worst movie about a...

The three actors who played The Three Stooges actually weren't bad at imitating The Three Stooges. Clearly they put some work into this. And yet the result was more than the death of comedy but rather the death, burial, decomposition and putrefaction of comedy. They did a decent imitation, and yet they ended up as funny as an industrial accident. The Stooges had something, after all.

Photo: AP

The three actors who played The Three Stooges actually weren't bad...

“John Carter” starts off with a protracted battle scene in which the audience doesn't know who's fighting or whom they should be rooting for. And that was just the first mistake in this misbegotten “Avatar” wannabe, which, despite considerable competition, had some of the worst 3-D effects of the year.

“John Carter” starts off with a protracted battle scene in...

In “This Means War,” two CIA agents, competing for the same woman (Reese Witherspoon), start spying on her with sophisticated surveillance equipment, in between leaving the office to go kill dozens of people, something that doesn't faze them in the slightest. The movie was a missive from a horrible place, a still-fictional but possible future world in which bullying is lovable, brutality is sport and power is free to rampage; in which people are not human but subhuman — smiling, craving veneers without souls. But the creepiest thing about the movie was that no one, either in front or behind the camera, noticed it was creepy. To all concerned, this was just a jolly romantic comedy.

Most of life is taken up with the things you have to do, some of which you want to do (eating and sleeping), some of which you'd rather avoid (leaping out of bed at 6 in the morning). Too little time is left for fun, and so with that in mind, what should we say about really bad movies?

Well, they are the nasty little entities that trick us into dipping into our tiny purse and handing over two whole hours of precious time. Three hours, if we're talking about “The Hobbit.”

In the case of the worst movies of 2012, we're not talking about movies that failed to make you happier or smarter or keep you entertained. We're talking about movies that made you feel worse, that robbed your time and money and left you tired, weary in spirit and sometimes despairing of the culture. These movies left you feeling superior, that's true, but alone.

The following list points no fingers at tiny independent movies that no one knows. Their obscurity is their own reward, and besides, maybe with a little bit of money, they might have had a better shot. Instead we'll be dealing only with major and fairly major releases.

Also, there's no point in including movies such as the remake of “Red Dawn,” which is stupid and never was intended to be anything but stupid, but which wears its stupidity in an open-hearted, genial sort of way. Go to a movie about North Korea invading the United States (ooh, scary), and you know what you're getting.

Finally, it's time to introduce a basement category, a beneath-contempt classification for movies that are truly horrible but are perhaps intended to be horrible, so to acknowledge them among the worst would be to do them a perverse honor. In that category this year, we find “The Collection,” about a masked maniac who tricks a lot of very naive young people into thinking they're at a nightclub, when in fact they're all dancing inside a massive food processor.

What follows are the worst movies of 2012 in reverse order of miserableness:

10. “Anna Karenina” and “The Hobbit” (a tie) Each was made by a reputable filmmaker who has done great work in the past, Joe Wright and Peter Jackson, respectively. Each was meticulously made, and yet awful. “Anna” suffered from distancing devices that would have made it impossible to care about Anna, even if she were played by someone other than Keira Knightley. And “The Hobbit” was one-third of a story inflated way beyond the bursting point into three hours of CGI battle scenes that suffocated the little life and humanity in the film.

9. “The Bourne Legacy” This death rattle of the Bourne series starred Jeremy Renner, in a thoroughly opaque thriller that assumed audiences had just seen all three Bourne movies the night before and had committed every detail to memory. Therefore everyone was supposed to know what Blackbriar and Alcom referred to and why this was a direct threat to national security. This was never really explained, and even Rachel Weisz, as a scientist everyone wants to kill (for some reason or other), couldn't lift the proceedings.

8. “That's My Boy” There are two kinds of Adam Sandler movies, and this was the worst kind, the kind in which he plays a comic character, not a version of himself. Playing the dissolute slob father of a young man who is about to be married, Sandler tried to do a comic character while all the time commenting on the character he was creating, as if unwilling to commit to it. He was terrible. And the movie was nonstop vulgar, coarse and witless.

7. “For Greater Glory” This history of the Cristero War in Mexico was so ineptly made that even the opening scroll was confusing. The movie started off as the story of a successful struggle, then shifted to a tale of moral victory in the face of defeat. And an insistent soundtrack telegraphed every emotion throughout.

6. “Chicken With Plums” An agony of bad plotting and whimsical, lifeless scenes, Marjane Satrapi's first live-action film told the story of a forlorn, chain-smoking violinist who, in the movie's first 10 minutes, decides to die. He gets into bed and doesn't die until the end of the movie. By then, half the audience is dead.

5. “Mansome”Morgan Spurlock cannot afford another lazy, self-loving, celebrity-coddling documentary like this one. He takes a topic of genuine sociological interest — male grooming over the years — but doesn't really explore it. The first quarter of the movie is a meditation on whether he should shave his mustache. (Who does he think he is, David Axelrod?) The rest is a series of empty-headed interviews with various celebrities who even know less about what they're talking about than does Spurlock. Looking at a blank screen for 82 minutes would be a less empty experience.

4. “A Little Bit of Heaven” This might be the worst movie about a serious illness ever made, with Kate Hudson as an imbecile who finds herself with every dire symptom of colon cancer and keeps cracking jokes, even up to the colonoscopy, and when the doctor says he's going to have to do biopsies, she goes off on her merry way, unconcerned. If you're going to do a movie about a terrible illness that kills thousands every year, have respect for the actual experience of those people and their physical and emotional suffering. This movie was a joke.

3. “The Three Stooges” This is what's odd: The three actors who played The Three Stooges actually weren't bad at imitating The Three Stooges. Clearly they put some work into this. And yet the result was more than the death of comedy but rather the death, burial, decomposition and putrefaction of comedy. They did a decent imitation, and yet they ended up as funny as an industrial accident. The Stooges had something, after all.

2. “John Carter” This movie starts off with a protracted battle scene in which the audience doesn't know who's fighting or whom they should be rooting for. And that was just the first mistake in this misbegotten “Avatar” wannabe, which, despite considerable competition, had some of the worst 3-D effects of the year.

1. “This Means War” Two CIA agents, competing for the same woman (Reese Witherspoon), start spying on her with sophisticated surveillance equipment, in between leaving the office to go kill dozens of people, something that doesn't faze them in the slightest. The movie was a missive from a horrible place, a still-fictional but possible future world in which bullying is lovable, brutality is sport and power is free to rampage; in which people are not human but subhuman — smiling, craving veneers without souls. But the creepiest thing about the movie was that no one, either in front or behind the camera, noticed it was creepy. To all concerned, this was just a jolly romantic comedy.

Mick LaSalle is the San Francisco Chronicle's movie critic.

mlasalle@sfchronicle.com.

Note: “Mansome” and “A Little Bit of Heaven” did not open in San Antonio in 2012. Both are available on video, if you're curious.